1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to an ASIC design support system for supporting ASIC designing works.
2. Prior Art
It is a critical requirement for enlarging share and securing an enough profit to reduce the time to market. In recent years, taking into consideration a short useful lifespan, a LSI, particularly, an ASIC must be developed quickly as compared with the past cases. On the other hand, the scales and the complexity of LSIs have been increased so that the support by the LSI vender is inevitable to design a useful ASIC in a short period of time.
In accordance with a conventional technique, a customer initiates ASIC development with a specification of the circuit as a target. Namely, the customer has to prepare a specification which includes what functions and characteristics the ASIC should has, what performance (e.g, the maximum operating frequency) is required, to what application the ASIC is used, what signals the ASIC should output, and so forth.
The customer then makes contact with the LSI vender to estimate for the price of the LSI. It is then judged whether or not an order should be placed, and if placed the customer is provided with a necessary library (or libraries) and a necessary simulator. More specifically speaking, the necessary library (or libraries), the necessary simulator and the like are sent by mail or downloaded from the homepage of the LSI vender, and installed in the environment of the customer. Also, the customer obtains a printed or electric manual(s) containing information about the method of manipulating the simulator, the cells and the design technology of the simulator.
The customer then conducts the logic design of the system with an HDL (Hardware Description Language) and so forth. The source text as designed is used to perform the logic synthesis in order to verify the design by simulation. In the case where the result of the simulation is not satisfactory, the verification of the design of the logic circuit is repeated by repeating the designing procedure and the logic synthesis.
The simulation can be conducted in general by preparing and executing a batch file and a configuration file in which are described simulation commands, the execution condition, selected options and so forth depending upon the version of the library (or libraries) and the distributing LSI vender.
However, it is required to describe the batch file and the configuration file, i.e., simulation commands, the execution condition, selected options and so forth depending upon the version of the library (or libraries) and the distributing LSI vender in order that the description can be parsed and interpreted by the simulator and the operating system (OS) serving to start the simulator. For this reason, the ASIC customer must have enough knowledge about the functions of the simulator and the operating system so that he has to learn them in advance of starting actual work, resulting in a substantial time and costs required for the learning. In addition to this, the batch file and the configuration file have to be rewritten, each time when the simulation condition is modified, so as to increase the time required for completing the preparation of the batch file and the configuration file and to increase the chance of making mistakes when preparing the batch file and the configuration file.
On the other hand, the library (or libraries) and the simulator are frequently updated at any time by the LSI vender when bugs have been fixed and/or when new functions have been introduced. When updated, the ASIC customer has to replace the current library (or libraries) and the current simulator by latest ones. However, while update information is given by the LSI vender for example through an e-mail from the LSI vender and the like or through the homepage, it is difficult for the ASIC customer to timely update these files.
In brief, the above and other objects and advantages of the present invention are provided by a new and improved ASIC design support system comprising: a web server; a homepage stored in the web server and transmitted to a customer through the Internet.
the homepage containing a form through which the customer can transmit to the web server the specification of an ASIC which the customer wants to purchase; a file generation mechanism associated with the web server for receiving the specification of the ASIC and generating a batch file and a configuration file which are required for designing the ASIC and performing simulation thereof, a mechanism for transferring the batch file and the configuration file required for designing the ASIC and performing simulation thereof; an update judgment mechanism for judging whether or not a library and/or a simulator required for designing the ASIC and performing simulation thereof was updated after the customer obtained a batch file and a configuration file at the last time with reference to update information of the library and the simulator and historic information of preparing batch files and configuration files; and a mechanism for transferring the latest versions of the library and/or the simulator required for designing the ASIC and performing simulation thereof when the update judgment mechanism judges that the library and/or the simulator required for designing the ASIC and performing simulation thereof was updated after the customer obtained a batch file and a configuration file at the last time.
In a preferred embodiment, further improvement resides in that an e-mail is send to the customer with information of a storage location (URL) in which are stored the batch file and the configuration file as generated by the file generation mechanism so that the customer can access to the storage location in order to download the batch file and the configuration file as generated.
In a preferred embodiment, further improvement resides in that the batch file and the configuration file as generated by the file generation mechanism are transferred to the customer as attachment file to an e-mail.
In a preferred embodiment, further improvement resides in that the batch file and the configuration file as generated by the file generation mechanism are downloaded directly from the homepage.
In a preferred embodiment, further improvement resides in that, in the case where the library and/or the simulator required for designing the ASIC and performing simulation thereof was updated after the customer obtained a batch file and a configuration file at the last time, the e-mail contains information of a storage location (URL) in which the library and/or the simulator are stored so that the customer can access to the storage location in order to directly download the library and/or the simulator.